We nominate Lord Avebury for his outstanding work in tackling social injustice in relation to immigration. His energy is equally, and strongly, spread across many significant issues – however politically appealing or isolating they may be. It is impossible to do justice to his year’s contribution and achievements in a short paragraph.

On behalf of lesbian and gay asylum seekers, who our group assists, he has been tireless in raising awareness of the perverse situation whereby countries in which gay men and lesbians are known to be persecuted are nonetheless deemed ‘safe’ by the Home Office. On wider immigration issues, he led a great deal of the UK Borders Bill, for example, the automatic deportation provisions would have received little scrutiny without him.

On the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, he was one of the few, if not the only one, to raise concerns about 'Special Immigration Status', which places asylum seekers who are not protected by the Refugee Convention but can't be returned to their countries of origin, in permanent limbo and destitution.

He was instrumental in retaining discretion with regards to the HC321 (automatic bans); and played a major role in achieving concessions with regards to: the Immigration and Nationality (Fees) (Amendment) Regulations 2008; the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 (Duty to Share Information and Disclosure of Information for Security Purposes) Order 2008; and Immigration (Biometric Registration) Regulations 2008.